1 And while thus things pass far in the distance, Juno daughter of Saturn sent Iris down the sky to gallant Turnus, then haply seated in his forefather Pilumnus' holy forest dell.
2 His comrades follow up with loud cries, so the father may withdraw in shelter of his son's shield, while they shower their darts and bear back the enemy with missiles from a distance.
3 Then Trinacrian Aetna is descried in the distance rising from the waves, and we hear from afar a great roaring of the sea on beaten rocks, and broken noises by the shore: the channels boil up, and the surge churns with sand.
4 Then Acragas on the steep, once the breeder of noble horses, displays its massive walls in the distance; and with granted breeze I leave thee behind, palm-girt Selinus, and thread the difficult shoals and blind reefs of Lilybaeum.
5 But he knows not his own self running nor going nor lifting his hands or moving the mighty stone; his knees totter, his blood freezes cold; the very stone he hurls, spinning through the empty void, neither wholly reached its distance nor carried its blow home.
6 After them, at equal distance, the Dragon and the Centaur strive to win the foremost room; and now the Dragon has it, now the vast Centaur outstrips and passes her; now they dart on both together, their stems in a line, and their keels driving long furrows through the salt water-ways.
7 Feeding and flying they advance at such distance as following eyes could keep them in view; then, when they came to Avernus' pestilent gorge, they tower swiftly, and sliding down through the liquid air, choose their seat and light side by side on a tree, through whose boughs shone out the contrasting flicker of gold.